An art history survey, traditionally taught, follows a canon of “masterpieces” created mostly by white males of Western European descent. If mapped, the dots representing works in this canon would be clustered heavily around France, Greece, and Italy. The students in my Art History and It’s Meaning class at Brooklyn College, a required course with completely trans-disciplinary enrollment, collaborated to research and create their own map. Students researched and wrote about the architecture and art that surrounds them in New York City. Our class map displays these sites, which range from the Flatiron Building to Banksy’s NYC graffiti. As such, it models a different kind of art history, a history that is written by students, rather than textbooks:

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A group of my students also collaborated on their own map, which shows graffiti created by street artist Banksy around NYC. Here is the map by Gedalya David Gottdenger, Solomon Ammons, and Lana Smith:

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